Barren Mare

Polar explorers

We're into the dark days now, waking up in the dark, coming home in the dark. Dark. The urge to hibernate is sort of overpowering. All I want to do once I put Botany to bed is lie down on the sofa (or even crawl into my own bed) and sleep. Instead I hang up the laundry and make the lunch and sort out the clothes for tomorrow; when I finally get around to setting the alarm on my mobile phone for the next day, I am disappointed at the little data read out telling me I have to be up in approximately 7 hours and 20 minutes. Bite me. 

Both Botany and I are continuing to fend off what seems like an endless bout of threadworms. At least, I'm pretty sure she still has them, judging from recent nappy inspections (phwarg) and from my ongoing...symptoms. We've been through two dosings of anti-worming medication but it only kills the worms, not the eggs, which can live for up to something like six weeks, clinging onto everything in sight. I have done multiple loads of laundry, washing seemingly everything in the house, including many of Botany's soft toys. I've hoovered and dusted. We've clipped our fingernails down to nubs. And I wash my hands about nine hundred gazillionity times a day. Yet still the little bastards persist! Knox brought me a whole box of rubber gloves as a present the other day (sexy!) for nappy changing purposes. But it sort of defeats any hygiene advantage that may be gained when an uncontrollable Botany goes wriggling off the mat, running starkers down the hallway screaming "Look at me, I'm skipping!" and no doubt shedding thousands of little egglets as she goes.  

I can tell you that I was initially a bit hesitant about owning up to this particular problem. People don't really talk about such matters around the water cooler (or indeed, much of anywhere, it seems)- I guess somehow the notion of parasites just generally gives folk the shudders. And so where better to unburden oneself about such an annoyance other than in front of the entire internets? Also, ever since my days of invasive infertility treatment, I've tried to take the Ranulph Fiennes approach to life. For those of you not familiar with Sir Fiennes, I can tell you he is a charmingly eccentric  British adventurer, probably best known for a number of successful but rather bonkers polar expeditions. You know, the type of person who tries to walk to the South Pole with nothing but a cat named Molly, a wooly jumper and packet of rich tea biscuits, ending up starving and delirious on the Ross Ice Shelf. Oh, and after one such endeavour, once back at home he amputated his own frostbitten fingertips with a hacksaw in his garden shed, rather than endure the rather inconvenient wait for surgery.

Anyway, he's written some interesting books, most of which I have read and I seem to recall that in one chapter he recounts how he is never embarrassed about anything, ever. How refreshing that must be. I reckon Sir Fiennes wouldn't bat an eyelash about having threadworms. He's probably had some sort of exotic bug that lays spores in your inner ear, creating a strange fondness for irritating pop tunes and Morris dancing.

The bottom line (oh ha ha ha) is I gather these particular parasites don't do any real harm. But ideally,  if I were to get pregnant, I'd really like to get shut of them beforehand- since the medication is apparently not suitable during pregnancy. One additional passenger for nine months would be enough, thanks.

Trifecta

To complete a trilogy of posts debating having a second child, I bring you some of the random, stream of thought musings that pass through my head on the subject, on a more or less hourly basis.

Sleep. I don't know if I can cope with the lack of sleep associated with a newborn, not to mention a toddler. By the time a baby arrives, I'm guessing Botany will have dropped her nap or be close to it and then what will I do when I need to catch up on sleep and I cringe at at the very idea of getting up at 4.30am for months on end. And I know Knox says he will get up but I'm not sure he really has any grasp of how hideous it really is while it's going on and besides, while he has many many strong points as a potential father, I'm not completely convinced that "getting up" is going to be his forte. Then again, we both love to sleep so much that maybe we'll produce one of those mythical "good sleepers". Or maybe the baby will be even worse than Botany was, and they will find me crouched, gibbering under the bed, clutching a Gro-clock, moaning about...

Time. I worry about not having time enough for Botany and I worry about the loss of our special one-to-one relationship. Could I ever love another child even a fraction as much or is the new one going to feel like a permanent interloper? What if I love the new child even more than Botany? What if I wind up a gibbering wreck (see above) and am unable to love either? And then there is Knox- I often feel like he is shortchanged on my attention and I so much want to give him more than I do now. But I already feel like I never have any time to myself, and that is not likely to get better with another little person in the mix, is it? No. As it is I barely even have a chance to shave my legs and sort out...

Clothes. My wardrobe in desperate need of updating, I bought a couple of nice new items for autumn. I look forward to getting dressed for work at the moment, going out of the house looking more or less like I have it together (although I did spot a big glob of white toothpaste in my hair this morning when I finally looked in the mirror in the office bathroom. Nice.). My heart sinks when I think about how long it took me to get back into my pre-pregnancy clothes (nine months and the stress of a bad breakup to get the weight off). Then there is the hidden scaffolding. I just started wearing an underwire bra again for the first time in over two years. I like it. My boobs like it, and more importantly, they need it. The temptation to burn all my skanky old pregnancy and nursing bras is strong. Even the thought of treating myself to some nicer models second time around does not stop the urge to shudder at the image of reaching up to undo the shoulder clip. That infernal little plastic *pop*. Much as I enjoyed breastfeeding Botany, I'm sort of enjoying being finished with that stage and not so keen to go back to... 

Nursing. Spraying milk aside, how do people manage the logistics and demands of breastfeeding an infant while also attending to a squeaky toddler?  For that matter, how do you manage to do anything at all with two kids? I know Botany would be older and more independent, but still. Can you order an extra pair of arms and eyes for the back of the head to go with the new car seat and crib? Paying for which would be a considerable...

Expense! Oh god. Can we afford a second child while starting up a business? I looked into doing an extra day at work to start building up some financial reserves but when I asked about increasing Botany's hours at nursery, they laughed and told me there probably wouldn't be a space until July 2010. I rummaged around online for a bit and found an alternative that looked fantastic, so much so that I sort of fell in love with the whole idea of it and decided I would seriously consider moving Botany there if they had an opening for a child of her age. Of course when I enquired, they also laughed, then politely told me to try again next autumn. Speaking to a newly pregnant colleague, I discovered she was signing up there (apparently, it's easier to get babies in, since you get on the waiting list at four months along) and standing there with her looking all glowing with her bump made me feel suddenly jealous and worried, realising that for all my casual dismissals...

Infertility. It's still lurking in the shubbery of my subconscious and it's going to bug me far, far more than I can bear to admit. While it's easy to talk about trying for a second as if it's actually going to happen, it's also easy to revert right back to the mindset I was in for so long. Doom! Doom! And even if I do get pregnant, let's face it, I'm nearly 40 and we're rolling the dice on some much scarier statistics for abnormalities. The prospect of having to do an amnio has always wigged me out even more than having an epidural and...

Childbirth. Yerrrgh. 'Nuff said.

The funny thing is, despite all that messy mindchurning doubt, last weekend I found myself putting the birth control pills to the back of the medicine cabinet. And the next day, I stopped taking them.  

Temporary surfacing

I had this somewhat wacky notion that once the wedding over, I would find myself with more spare time. The reality is that in the months leading up to the event, and during all the planning, I was simply burning the candle at both ends even more than usual- stretching myself to 11.30pm or midnight (or even later) bedtimes, instead of the more sensible 10pm needed to maintain the health and sanity of someone needing to get up again at 6am with a lively toddler. Now that the normal routine has resumed, I have discovered that there is still the same endless amount of stuff to do in the short space of evening once Botany finally goes to sleep, bar fretting over place settings and menu choices and play lists of music. To my disappointment, I also realised that a backlog had accumulated in other places- long overdue emails still needing to be sent. A winter wardrobe woefully in need of freshening up. The festive season wriggling like chorus girl in her underwear, one foot in her stockings and half made up, but about to burst forth into as a full blown Christmas diva, demanding cards and presents and lovingly hand crafted decorations.   

For the moment, though, my foot has had to come off the gas a little. Part of it is Knox's influence- he is much better at chilling out than I am. I am trying to give myself permission to get to bed at a reasonable hour, even though everyday it means I leave a list of items undone. When I get a minute for some down time, I am forcing myself to take the opportunity to relax a little. And I am becoming aware that my body- and perhaps my mind- really needs it. When E. came to take Botany for the day over the weekend, I went back to bed, thinking I would have a short nap, and I woke up five hours later. Tonight, instead of sitting writing the gazillion thank you cards that are now a month overdue, I sat melded to the sofa, watching some mindless pap on television for an hour. 

It feels more surfacing for a short time, before taking a long breath before the next deep, deep dive, than a permanent change of pace. That's particularly true, in that it looks like we're going to solve the Knox employment/two city conundrum by buying a business to run. The location is perfect in that it's just up the street from our flat. The downside is that he's never run a business of this type before and it's a little risky and at least initially, it's likely to be incredibly stressful and consume all of his waking moments. Which means that I'll probably continue to shoulder much of the burden of running our home- I'm in a happy position in that I feel confident about managing it, given that I've basically done so for this long, but I also feel a bit weary about the whole prospect. I was ready for things to get a little easier; however, I'm becoming resigned to the idea that there is no perfect solutions and there are a hell of a lot more pros to at least having Knox and I living in the same place seven days a week. And if nothing else, it's going to be fun and challenging and exciting, though possibly in the same way that paddling a canoe through a crocodile invested swamp gets the heart rate going.  

Oh, and Knox really wants to start trying for us to have a baby together, as soon as possible. It's of course far from being the optimum time but the old saying is true in that there never really is a perfect time, is there?  I turned 39 a few weeks ago and it's difficult to have a conversation about our future without being drowned out by the sound of the ticking toward the deadline of the expiration of any remaining fertility. And other than a panicked sense of being about to run out of time, the thoughts I have about the whole idea of a second child are so complicated and confused I am not even sure how to begin talking about it except to say Oh. My. God. 

Pretty dress

Visitors! Visitors from out of town and overseas! For ten days! Bringing with them a young child three months older than Botany and a tendency to pack it in and live life at a dazzling pace. They left yesterday. The house is quiet once more- no more squealing rows over teddies and the doll buggy and the book that the other child wants to read. No more Botany's plaintive cry of "Share!" while wrestling the desired item out of the other child's paw. (Share meaning "give it to me at once", of course.) I'm a little drained and quite backlogged in my usual endless round of tasks (including writing the ring story. Your patience will be rewarded with photos of the shiny thing.)

Speaking of tasks, I have a new daily chore to add to the litany. After 20 or so months of submitting quite dutifully to putting whatever it was I had chosen for her to wear, Botany recently began to demonstrate a preference for donning what she dubs "pretty dresses." Of course when she announced that this was all she wanted (accompanied by ripping the proposed shirt and trousers ensemble out of my hand and throwing it across the room), I only had about two dresses in the wardrobe. In the interests of keeping the peace and being able to leave the house to go to work/nursery in a reasonable timescale, at the first opportunity I duly acquired a couple of suitably fetching dress items. Amongst these was an attractive rose coloured frock, plain in design but made of a pleasingly soft fabric, with a floaty form.

Cue obsession. Absolute obsession. This is the pretty dress to end all pretty dresses. For an entire week it was quite literally all Botany wanted to wear, even at bedtime. Any other dress was spurned emphatically.  Removing the pink pretty dress resulted in tears. Putting it in the washing machine and then letting it dry resulted in a spectacular nuclear meltdown, with tiny fists pounding on the wall followed by a stealth attempt to later actually untie the cord holding up the overhead drying rack. Ain't happening, baby, that rope is secured to within an each of its life, given that when we put it up I anticipated just this eventuality. Unfortunately, there was no way around needing to wash the thing, since the obsession coincided with both a hot spell of weather (sweaty) and the discovery of a food item named jam (sticky). 

Finally, in desperation, my mother made a mercy dash to town to buy a second, identical pink pretty dress. The look of ecstasy on Botany's face when I produced it in the morning and her delighted wiggle of joy when I slipped it over her head made it worthwhile. However, I draw the line at having more than two of the same item, especially since I fully expect that this is a passing fancy that will end abruptly, sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, the need to have a constant supply of clean pink pretty dresses means every night, the dirty one is handwashed and hung up to dry while the next one is rotated into position for the morning.

I suppose, bearing in mind all the strange quirks of toddlerhood, this is a relatively small thing. But the experience of nightly washing and drying of the same dress occasionally gives me an odd Groundhog Day type sensation. That or feeling transported back to the olden days of yore when people really had far less clothing and (I would imagine) made do with one or two dresses handed down from child to child. Mind you, I expect they were accustomed to being far grubbier, generally, and less likely to encounter sniffs of disapproval from the other people at the sight of a little jam down the front.  

Because it's always fun to rearrange the furniture anyway!

Traps O'Death were already being deployed at the time of the writing of that last post. That is, the serious no-more-messing-around-you-little-bastards-neck snappers and the poison snacks were deposited at strategic mouse-favoured locations. Well out of the reach of even the most intrepid of Botanies, I might add. I tried various baits, although it turned out we were out of peanut butter. After nearly a week with no results (and more mouse antics in the night), I broke down and got out the mothballs.

Someone wise suggested that if I used mothballs my house would stink like old, incontinent people. Forever. I laughed when I read that comment and chuckled a bit more when I first opened the package, because damn! These really are some whiffy little items. Then I winced a bit as I strew the smelly things about the flat, silently chanting "Beloved grandmother's attic. This reminds me of my beloved grandmother's attic".

When Knox arrived, he wrinkled his nose as soon as he walked in the door and said, "Phew. It smells like old, incontinent people in here."  At which point even I had to concede that it simply reeked. Oh well, I said, we can try it for one night.

You would have thought I had put down the equivalent of mouse catnip, because that night, they came and cavorted about the bedroom like never before. Well, I was actually sound asleep, but Knox lay awake, witnessing the whole thing. The mouse came in, tapdanced around the shoes for a bit (where I had most liberally placed the mothballs), scampered up and down the length before ascending into my laundry basket.

Then, he reported incredulously in the morning, the mouse leapt straight out of the basket and clung on to that nice blue woolen scarf I have hanging on a hook on the back of the door. There it swayed, suspended above the floor, presumably trying to work out how to scale the Everest proportions of the wardrobe itself to reach the nappy bag on top, before dropping off and running away to feast on whatever crumbs Botany had dropped under her highchair.

It was like the Mouse Olympics, Knox said, shuddering. I would not have believed him about the scarf on the door thing, but Knox is not prone to making stuff like that up.

So, in the morning, the mothballs were removed and all windows opened to try to clear the stench. Fortunately, since it was only one night, it doesn't seem the odour was permanent, although amazingly hard to get rid of the smell despite the relatively short length of time. You have been warned, ye who would consider mothballs.

As far as the ongoing mouse problem, I decided the solution was to remove all the shoe storage boxes (leaving nowhere to hide) and to relocate the laundry basket in a less mouse friendly location and to pull the wardrobe out from wall making it less of a desirable place to hang out, all the more so with poison and Trap of Death at either end (to be removed in the day time from botanical reach). That night, we spotted the mouse in the kitchen, obviously looking for a new home. We sealed up the room that night, apart from the hole in the back of the refrigerator where they are obviously coming and going, and in the morning we took the bold step of sealing that hole as well, in the hope that the mouse had gone there rather than say, behind the cooker.

Since then, it's been a mouse free zone in my room- so far, anyway- and we're hoping the rest of the flat is similarly cleared, although I am less optimistic about that.

I was just breathing a sigh of relief as I stood by the bedroom window sill, folding my laundry, when a gigantic spider ran out from behind Knox's underpants and sat there glowering at me while I freaked out elaborately.   

Next time, I promise: less rodents and more wedding chat! I believe I owe you a story about the ring.       

Mousefestation

It appears you are all too scared of catching my computer cooties to comment. Never mind. I think (I hope) my clever father may have fixed it. Or at least he ripped out the system's guts, performed emergency surgery and stapled it all back together again. It is functioning, for now, although I am not completely optimistic that the problem is completely eradicated.

Much like the problem with the mice in this flat. Following a long quiet spell after the murder of Graham Mouse, the mouse family is back- at least one, or possibly two. Unfortunately, it seems that the mouse clan has decided to relocate into my bedroom- specifically, behind my wardrobe. I suppose I could live with a certain amount of scampering around the flat, but when it's happening right next to my bed, it gives me the heebies.

Worse still, the mice are demonstrating a decided fondness for my laundry basket. Over the weekend,  I stashed the nappy bag there (thinking, tra la la, that I needed to make sure the bag was off the floor so the mice didn't get into it.) Then, as I was changing the bedsheets, I heard a rustling of tiny mouse feet coming from inside the bag. I ran to get Knox, and he quickly zipped up the bag opening. He held it up.

"I bet the mouse is long gone," he said.

"I wouldn't be so sure- I think it is still in there," I told him. So we waited it out, placing the bag in a quiet corner. Sure enough, about half an hour later, we heard telltale scrabbles. Eek. Knox bravely embarked on a bit of mouse relocation out in the garden- as soon as he opened the bag, the thing leaped about ten feet in the air, straight past him and into the sanctuary of the stone wall.

In hindsight we probably should have tried to take the mouse a bit further afield, because within a day or so, we were hearing the same familiar noises. I wouldn't have necessarily thought it was the same mouse, except it keeps heading for the damn laundry basket in the bedroom. Last night, I was awakened at 1am by the sound of small chomping noises coming from the laundry corner. With the aid of a broom handle, I poked the basket and the mouse shot out over the side (scaring the beejezus out of me, I might add) and off behind the wardrobe. I threw my coat over the top of the basket but evidently that was not enough of a deterrent from whatever appealing morsel it was in search of, since an hour or so later, I woke up again to hear the mouse making merry amongst my dirty linen. This time, when I stabbed the basket, the mouse made its escape over the side again but changed direction mid leap, heading straight for my feet, causing me to pinwheel frantically backwards still clutching the broom handle and emitting a muffled shriek.

This morning as I sat hollow eyed with exhaustion at my desk, a colleague said sympathetically,

"Botany keeping you up all night?"

"Nah," I said, "laundry mouse." 

Cue look of bemused confusion at the gibbering idiot.

So, I've had enough of the mouse antics, and from now on, it's war. War, I tell you!  I'm going in all guns blazing with all removal mechanisms at my disposal. Somebody once suggested mothballs, which I will try, though these are surprisingly tricky to find. There's no evidence of moths in the flat as yet, but given that we seem to be suffering from all sorts of infestations stemming from various sources, it can do no harm to have a two for the price of one method. 

Sunshine on my shoulder

This is a very quick post, as the time is approaching 10pm. Since our arrival in Florida, Botany has reverted to waking at 4.30am. Getting up that early for more than a couple days in row makes me feel as if my head has been slammed in a door, so I need to sleep when I can. On the upside, 4.30 am is a big improvement from waking at 3am, which she insisted upon doing for the first couple days of our stay. Today she was beginning to show the signs of a child who has been burning the candle at both ends for too long and I can only hope that by persisting with some semblence of a regular wake/nap/bedtime routine, we will eventually get back to a more humane waking hour for everyone. 

Oh, and speaking of timers, I had forgotten all the lights in my parent's house are set to go off at ten o'clock. Having just been plunged into darkness(bar the light from the monitor), I shall have to grope my way upstairs in the blackness, trying not to trip over squeaky monkey and the box of toy food.   

But first I will tell you that the flight itself was relatively painless. It's a long trip, to be sure, and we were all quite exhausted at the end of it, but Botany was very well behaved. As I had hoped, the novelty value of being on a plane carried us over the first couple of hours. Ooh, look, mini packs of pretzels! Play with the seatbelt! Big plane, big plane! Then, when she got rammy, it was time to begin doling out the books and new toys on an hourly basis. Thank god for sticker books and the portable DVD player. There was one meltdown, when I got up to go to the bathroom and didn't take Botany, because the fasten seat belt sign was still on, but I confess I didn't have to hear any of it over the THRUM of the jet engines. And when I got back, her tears were soon dried, although I think Knox's ear drums (and those of our fellow passengers) are still recovering. 

Since then- the beach (wheeee!), a trip on my dad's boat (wheeee!), eating lots of fresh strawberries (yummm!), pushing the doll buggy on endless laps around my folks' house (wheee again!). We are unfolding gradually in the sun and show signs of defrosting at last. It is most pleasing.

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose

Or, to translate the title from Scots to English, "there's a mouse loose in the house." Or possibly mice, plural- likely a whole family.

I do my very best under the circumstances to try to maintain at least a basic level of hygiene around this place. True, the area around and under the highchair often teeters on the brink of becoming a biohazard zone. But for the most part, toys get tidied away, the dishes get washed, the laundry gets hung up, the carpet is hoovered once a week and the bathroom wiped down with all manner of aggressive cleaning agents on a regular basis. I thought I was keeping on top of things.

So it was with some dismay that just before Christmas, when in a burst of festive scrubbing, I found myself making a grim discovery in the less frequented areas of the flat (i.e. behind the fridge and the toolbox). The telltale signs of mouse visitation, namely, dried mouse poo and mouse wee. Lots of it- and it stank.

"Oh my god," I said to Knox, "we've descended to a state of vermin infestation. What kind of mother am I? " 

It's hardly surprising, he said, noting that on any given day, Botany drops enough food on the floor to fatten a mouse colony. It's impossible to keep up with sweeping up every scrap.  And it's pretty common for both new and old tenements in this city to be overrun with mice; the little bastards burrow into the walls and run up and down between the floors as they please.

We poked around the droppings site and found a large hole in the wall behind the fridge which is clearly serving as a mouse portal to the delights of Botany's discarded blueberries, cheerios and smoked bavarian cheese. That night as we sat on the sofa, we heard (or imagined we heard) the sound of tiny rodent feet scuttling under the floorboard. When Knox went to the kitchen later on to get a drink of water, he surprised a mouse making its way to the buffet table under the highchair; both of them leapt about 10 feet in the air.

"Right," I said, "we're getting some traps." He looked horrified, even as I explained that having had a go-round with a mouse problem in a previous flat, experience had shown me that the humane kind of trap is pretty much useless and that accordingly we would proceed straight to the draconian death method. Please understand, it's not that I am keen to be cruel to little animals, but in terms of housekeeping standards, I pretty much draw the line at sharing living space with rodents. 

"But it's Christmas," Knox said. "What happens when Father Mouse doesn't come home on Christmas morning to open the presents? Think of his little stocking hanging by the mouse tree, all forlorn. The mouse children crying. His mouse widow, alone over the holidays!"

This argument was just Brambly Hedge enough for me to relent, so I agreed to stay of execution until the New Year. Whereupon we procured a trap, baited it and stuck in behind the refrigerator by the mouse hole. By this point, of course, Knox had proceeded to name the various members of the mouse family. All the more distressing therefore that after a couple of days of trying tempting lures of peanut butter and Belgian chocolate, we did succeed in bringing about the demise of one "Graham Mouse". The head of the mouse household. Still, I felt less sorry about it when last night, I found his widow, "Sarah Mouse", making a mad dash to safety under the cabinets when I came into the kitchen at midnight to adjust the central heating. Sarah Mouse does seem to be a rather less prolific pooper, though, since there is considerably less evidence of her continued presence. I'd like to think perhaps she has taken the hint and decamped, along with any of her attendant mouse brood, but that seems somewhat naively optimistic.

In other news, Botany has discovered the moon. We drove home late one night from a visit to Knox's mother; despite having gotten Botany into her jammies so she could sleep on the ride back, she stayed awake the entire trip staring in rapt fascination at the glowing orb in the sky. Since then she has become completely moonstruck; even more so when she found it was sometimes actually visible during the day. All she wants to do is to be lifted up at the living room window and to stand, for what seems like hours, shouting "Moon! Moon!", interspersed with sightings of Cat! Cat! and Woof!Woof! and Car!Car!  It's really extremely charming, although she's no longer a lightweight and my arms are starting to feel the strain. Such is her current moon obsession I may actually have to bend to convention and get that book.

Incy wincy had a very shiny nose

If you're wondering if you've missed the reveal of my good news referred to earlier, the answer is no. I've been saving it up to tell at Christmas. No peeking!

I have also been working on a post telling the story of how I ended up living in Scotland. But it's beginning to assume epic proportions, and it's taking me forever. So, to tide you over as an interim measure:  I was inspired by the vision of the bird thing on top of the tree at the Hairy Farmer Family abode, and realised the world might appreciate a glimpse of my own little macabre festive ornamentation.  

It's a little hard to capture the full pecularity of it, but I bring you what is probably the first ever picture of the Christmas spider. 

   

If you are thinking, what in the name of arse is that, well- basically what it looks like. It's a knitted spider which lives on top of my Christmas tree, and has done annually for the last 30 years or so. Except last year, when we didn't have a tree because of the dog and my general exhaustion. Or the year before that, when there was no tree because of the dog and my general pukiness. And possibly the year before that, when I was so depressed by the failed IVF and E. trying to break up with me that the decorations consisted of some fairy lights on a large potted plant. But this year, the Christmas spider makes his triumphant return!

I think, once upon a time, the spider went with a Little Miss Muffet doll and accompanying knitted tuffet, all lovingly handmade by my slightly odd grandmother and now lost forever. I'm not quite sure how Mr Spider survived to haunt my Christmas tree, although if memory serves, my brother had something to do with the original adornment, probably as a means of trying to piss me off. The Christmas trees of my childhood were filled with a funky assortment of stuff anyway- paper airplanes zooming between the branches, strange handmade wooden toy soliders, and the grooviest, ugliest retro plastic star you've ever seen. Except that it was the Seventies, so not really all that retro at the time, in fact. It was lost or broken some years ago, causing much mourning amongst the more nostalgic family members, i.e. me.

Anyway, for Botany's sake, I thought it was high time to revive some of the quirkier family traditions, starting with the Christmas spider. Not that she can really see it. And the rest of the tree looks decidedly normal when you omit the top, albeit in a half price bargain artificial sort of way.  Now all we need is some presents to go under it. Mmm. Tick tock.

The fridge magnets do not lie